Showing posts with label record attempts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label record attempts. Show all posts

09 January 2015

Look How Many Teeth You Have, Grandma!

Some of us pine for our youth---or at least some parts of it.  

Me, I wouldn't want to have to live it again as someone for whom the "M" box was checked off on her birth certificate.  But I wouldn't mind doing, again, some of the things I did in those times.  And I certainly would be happy to be in the kind of physical shape I was in for the fifteen or so years before my gender transition.

At age 40, I was something of a hero to the guys with whom I used to ride, some of whom were about half my age.  For a time, I was riding my Land Shark with 56-42 chainrings and an 11-21 nine-speed cassette.  And my knees never hurt. Nothing ever felt stiff, either.


But I had nothing on whoever rode this bike:

From DoobyBrain.com



 Now, whoever that person is, his or her mechanical skills didn't match his or her riding abilities-- or that person had a terrible mechanic:  The front fork is on backward.

Then again, perhaps it was meant to be.  After all, someone would ride with such a big chainring only for a motor-paced record attempt.  For such a ride, the cyclist would want the shortest wheelbase possible and the lowest possible amount of air resistance.

I don't know who might have ridden this bike or what record he or she might have broken.  But, from what I can see, the chainring has 124 teeth!